I’m thinking of buying a futon, but I’ve never used one before. So how do the sheets and covers and such work? I know you sit on the cover when it’s in sofa form, so when you want to change it into a bed, what do you do? Do you put sheets over the cover or take the cover off?
It would be very inconvenient to take the cover off and put it back on every day, because you have to pull the mattress off the frame, so that doesn’t seem right. But all the futon care information I’ve read suggests you rotate or flip the mattress every time you change the sheets. That doesn’t make sense if you change the sheets every day.
If the sheets are over the cover, wouldn’t fluids leak through on to the cover? Like drool or, well, the infamous “wet spot” after certain activities. Then you change it back into a sofa, sit down, and suddenly, eww…
I’ve been to dozens of futon web sites and none of them address this issue.
You keep the cover on all the time (except for washing off course), and you put a matress pad between the sheets and the cover. The matress pad, pillows, sheets and blankets/duvets are usually stored in some kind of compartment under the frame.
As for rotating/flipping the matress, I suggest you do it once (or maybe twice) every week. If it is a cotton-type futon matress it should be rolled and turned quite often, in order to keep it in good shape. If you don’t want to bother with it, I suggest you by a latex-foam matress instead. It doesn’t require the same amount of upkeep.
I had a futon once for a period of about a year. I got it because I had planned to move twice within about an eight-month period, and didn’t have much other furniture, and didn’t want to bother with moving a real bed. I had a soft-sided one that was basically a “Z”-shaped triple platform and a mattress, with the deck about eight inches off the floor. It started out bearable for sleeping on, and became worse as the (sleep-grade) mattress took a set. Putting extra boards between the frame slats helped keep it from sinking down between the frame slats so much. You folded the mattress over on itself for the lower part of the seat when you wanted to use it as a chair, but it wasn’t good for that either as you tended to sink/slide off of it.
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It was good for only ONE thing… GF’s like it because a certain position was very easy to maintain for long periods on it.
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We have a futon in our family room which is usually left in couch form. When we do use it as a bed, we put the sheets over the cover. I’ve never bothered with a mattress pad, myself, but if you really want to protect the cover, I’m sure that you could use one. Our cover is machine washable, so if it did get yukky, we could always wash that.
Our mattress has a foam core, and the instructions say that you are supposed to flip the mattress every month. Since we don’t sleep on it all the time, I usually just flip it when I remember to.
If you are going to sleep on it all the time, choose wisely. Everyone I’ve known who has had a cheap futon has said they were horrible for sleeping, and they are amazed at how comfortable ours is! You can get an innerspring futon mattress if you want. We didn’t go for that because it was more expensive, we weren’t going to sleep on it every night, and it was weird to sit on a couch that feels like a bed. We went for the midgrade mattress, and it is quite comfortable to sit and sleep on, IMO.
You might also consider a queen-size futon, especially if you plan on sharing it often ;).
Just a quick little side note. Don’t get a velvet futon cover, as they act like velcro and are very uncomfortable to sit in if you are the sort of person that wears clothes. Your clothes will cling to the velvet and not “slide.” Same for velvet couches.